I've fallen with the canoe twice, once when I was 16, once when I was 50 (my next scheduled fall with the canoe will be when I'm 84.)  The one that happened when I was 50...I hadn't thought of this until SS's post, but it was very similar to the way I fell in September.  When I was 50, I rolled my ankle on a very small, nearly invisible nub of a root on a cart-path-wide portage, on level ground, and I just crumpled.  The difference was just the direction my ankle rolled.  With the backpack, I've gone down a handful of times over the years, almost always in a controlled way where I can kind of sit down.  Still, I think about some of the portage terrain....I've tried to be careful, but it can happen so easily and so quickly.  I'm 60, I still have some canoe tripping ahead of me, but I'm going to take this like a bit of a wakeup call.  Had I done this in the park....what a mess.  What an absolute mess.  Would need help getting out, stuff would be abandoned until somehow it magically gets retrieved, I'd unable to drive home the 6 hours or whatever home, etc.  What an absolute, total mess that would be.  Plus it hurts to do it.  A lot.  I'm still in PT, 2 months later I am walking without a crutch, but I still limp. Still a bit swollen, still lack full range of motion...I've made a lot of improvement, but am still a work in progress.

The thing is, I'm not ready or willing to hang up my paddle.  We all acknowledge the possibility of injury when we push off from shore. I wiped out in my back yard, not on a canoe trip.  Injury like this can happen anywhere.  I've always tried to be careful about injury-risk on my trips (not rushing, taking care on bad terrain, not overloading myself, etc.), and now part of being careful about injury-risk will include route selection.     

Thank you all so much for the suggestions.  I'll be pouring through all these recommendations (since I've nothing better to do!).  

I know this is early....some of you might have seen my post about fracturing my fibula in September.  I'm on the mend post-rod-insertion-surgery, PT continues, but a good way to go yet.

I missed both my 2025 trips this year (one due to work, one due to injury), so I'm really hoping for a Spring 2026 ice out trip.  I'm nervous about it for two reasons.  1) My wife gets nervous when I take canoe trips, and this injury won't help that, and 2) My last trip was the Fall of 2024, that's a long time between trips, I'm 60, and I'm coming off a significant injury.

Short version, I think I need this trip to be pretty gentle, especially in terms of portaging.  By May, I should be doing just fine, but I want to kind of go knee deep rather than neck deep with this trip.  The ankle will be fine, but a simple trip will help with points 1 and 2 above.  Any thoughts along Highway 60 or the western side of the park?  Would prefer a loop, but a down-and-back works too.  Here are a couple of areas, just to give the idea of what I'm thinking.  

Canoe-Joe-Tepee-Fawn-Littledoe, maybe Tom Thomson.  I've done that before, it is all paddling except for the easiest portage you've ever seen....I like to think I can handle more than one portage.

Tim River to Rosebary?  Not familiar with that part of the Tim.  Guessing there are a lot of beaver dams.

Farm to Booth?  I've done that a few times.  There are a couple up-downs on the Kitty-Booth portage that presently make me nervous, but probably won't by May.

My usual areas - starting from Magnetawan or Rain - there are some pretty good ups/downs with some of the portages in those areas.  I've been giving it some thought, but as an example, the portage into Daisy when you start from Magnetawan...that's steep.  Going from Rain Lake to Hot Lake up that flight of stairs...that's steep...think flat, and gentle, like almost cart path.

I hope some folks can offer some thoughts.  Honestly, this is as much about me rebuilding my co

Thanks everybody, I really appreciate the kind thoughts.  The splint thing comes off in eight days, not that I'm counting or anything, after that a boot and PT begins.  I am highly motivated to get this thing back in working order, so I'll be the the best PT patient in the whole class.

Relative to solo tripping....I'm always very careful about where I step and not taking big chances, in order to avoid something of this nature.  So, let me be everybody's object lesson, a reminder, to take a little extra care when you're on your own.  Otherwise your lack of invincibility may show, and you'll end up like I was - alone in a wooded area, phone in the house, wife in Seattle, kids away at college, whimper-limping back to the house to reach out for help. I only had to go the distance of a football field (thought I'd have to crawl, but managed the whimper-limp).  Imagine doing that to yourself on a canoe trip, because you were absent-minded for a moment, or had a hold-my-beer moment, or figured "it's not that far, I can do a little jump and land ok on that one rock".  Should that happen, maybe your ability to reach out to the world is at the other end of the portage, but even if you can get help, you're on your own, it hurts like ever-living H....you get the idea.  The injury can happen even if you're being smart and cautious, but of course there's no need to court disaster.

My wife hates it when I solo trip....this isn't gonna help my case come spring time....

Guess who broke his fibula when he rolled his ankle and crumpled down on top of it.  I'll give you one guess.  

Surgery happens Friday.  Missed my Spring trip this year, Fall trip just got bone-snapped.  I guess the next trip I can hope for is May 2026, and it will probably have to be a very lightweight kind of a trip I guess (heavy on paddling, light on carrying).  Doc said I'll be feeling good in 2-3 months, but for fully healed everything is awesome, 1 year.  

Pro-tip: If you pull wild grape vine out of trees to keep it from choking the trees out, remember that those vines are springy and they pull back.

Reminder: Nobody ever did something like this because they did something smart....

Thanks for sharing that!  What a great trip!

For sale: cozy log cabin, beautiful view and nestled in a secluded location.  Handyman special.  

No idea where this is, but it is a cool photo.  I feel like the caption should be "And that's why I had to swim for my canoe."  The boat just looks like it is itching to get in that rapid.

Just tried to delete one.  "We couldn't access the requested file."

I haven't received a message for a year and a half, and I don't think I've successfully sent one for that long, so I'm not sure that's working.  Viewing trip reports works ok, but I kind of gave up posting them myself because I have so much difficulty getting the photos to upload. I'm assuming that's a version-of-software issue that's beyond my technical knowledge (which is a low threshold to cross I'm afraid).  I've got access to two computers, one I can never get to upload photos to the site, the other I can but it is kind of random.  Sometimes I can get two or three uploaded, sometimes five or six, sometimes zero.